WPY 2012

The real cost

This female southern white rhino is inseparable from her new male companion (right). It’s a miracle she is alive. Four months earlier, in Tugela Private Game Reserve, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, she was brutally attacked by poachers. The men surveyed the area by helicopter, mapped out the movements of the rhino and the guards, darted her and then, using a chainsaw, cut off her horn, including a large section of bone. They left her to die, but she was found wandering the following day in unimaginable pain. Her four-week-old calf, which had become separated, died of dehydration and starvation.

Waste product

This southern white rhino had been snared and killed for its horn on Selati Game Reserve, Hoedspruit, South Africa. It was one of two animals slaughtered in two days. Most reserves now employ armed guards, but it’s impossible to protect free-ranging animals in such large areas, and rhino poaching is at an all-time high in Africa. The killing has also become opportunistic, with many poachers who previously would only snare smaller animals taking advantage of the high price paid for horns. The snaring of rhino was unheard of until two years ago. Poaching has also moved into much larger circles, with sinister links to organised crime.

Sunset over the land of rhinos

This is how rhinos should be seen, in their natural terrain, unfenced and with room to roam. The actual location is Imfolozi and Hluhluwe Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. This is not only one of South Africa’s oldest and largest wildlife reserves but also the world’s largest repository for rhinoceroses, home to about 2,000, mainly southern white, though with some black. It’s also a major poaching site. In 2011 in South Africa, more than 450 rhinos were killed for their horn, often by well-organised and well-armed gangs, using helicopters and with a supply route to northern ports for export to the Far East.

Weighing up the value

In South Africa, many game farms are dehorning their rhinos as a precautionary anti-poaching measure, though poachers may still kill a rhino for the stump, and the horns will grow back after about five years. Here, on a game farm outside Klerksdorp, the vet’s assistant holds up the horns of a southern white rhino for an identity picture. The horns will be microchipped and securely stored as investment should trade in rhino horns be legalised. Conservation groups are largely against legalisation as a way of satisfying the Asian-market demand for horn, fearing a lack of ethical policing of any trade.

Learning to fight back

The illegal trade in wildlife is now the third largest criminal industry in the world, and men such as these Zimbabwe rangers are in the front line of the fight against it. But unlike the organised gangs of poachers after rhino horn and ivory, rangers seldom have access to automatic weapons or proper training. Damien Mander, a former special-operations soldier in the Australian military, has set up the International Anti-poaching Foundation in response to the rhino slaughter. Here, at Victoria Falls, he leads a free workshop teaching rangers everything from weapon-use and tracking to ambush and arrest techniques.

The consumer

The demand for rhino horn is being driven by the growing Asian middle class. Many believe the centuries-old myth that it cures a multitude of ailments, even though it is merely keratin – the constituent of hair, fingernails and toenails. This wealthy Vietnamese woman is a typical consumer. She has bought the horn from the dealer sitting next to her and is grinding it for personal consumption in full public view in a roadside café. The woman claimed it cured her kidney stones and said that she took it daily for her general health. Despite rhino horn being an illegal substance in Vietnam, both the woman and her dealer had no fear of the police and happily ground the horn in full view of the street. The dealer told Brent that he paid $1500 a month to the ‘right’ people so that he could continue selling it with impunity.

Photograph Details

Runner-up 2012

Wildlife Photojournalist Award

Brent Stirton, South Africa

Deadly Medicine

This is a tragic story about a growing fashion for consuming rhino horn that now threatens the extinction of rhinos. Their horns, mere keratin, the substance of fingernails, is now more valuable than gold on the Asian black market.

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Brent Stirton, South Africa

Brent is a photojournalist who spends half of the year on environmental issues and the other half on more conventional photojournalistic themes. He is represented by Verbatim by Getty Images and most of his work is shot for National Geographic magazine.